Technology, Speech Therapy and Autism

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Apps for Autism

Read this article, and you will learn something new and useful. Hopefully, the previous sentence activated your nucleus accumbens, a structure located deep in your brain that plays a key role in reward and learning mechanisms. Whether you’re playing a videogame, listening to music, eating chocolate, or learning something new and interesting, the nucleus accumbens supports all of these experiences. Learning and engagement are, in fact, intricately woven together by specific regions in the brain. Yet the relationship between learning and engagement often gets short shrift — as if fun can dilute the content of an education. Current research is showing us, however, that learning and entertainment go hand in hand: in fact, edu-tainment may be the future of teaching and learning.

Ed•u•tain•ment (noun /ˌɛʤəˈteɪnmənt/) is content with a high degree of both educational and entertainment value that is designed to teach something — using games, computers, films, or other media

We know that engagement and interest in academic tasks create positive educational experiences for children, which can spark curiosity and fascination for learning. And for children with autism, motivation and engagement are essential. However, many school-aged children — kids with ASD included — are often given academic tasks that can be overly challenging and mostly unengaging. Research suggests that mundane, uninteresting tasks can lead to behaviors, which can impede or interfere with learning. On the other hand, recent research has shown that having fun can improve learning: even abstract, complex information.

Currently, educators have effective strategies to help children with autism engage in a task and learn critical new skills — such as using a child’s “special interest” to connect to material, giving choices to promote involvement, reinforcing responses during a task, working for a reinforcer, and interspersing both easy and challenging tasks to mediate frustration. Combining these strategies as a “package” has been shown to improve motivation and engagement — while, at the same time, decreasing behaviors that negatively impact learning.

New mobile devices can help educators and therapists engage children on the autism spectrum, using the power of edutainment. With mobile technology — iPad, iPhone, tablet, and apps that literally fit in the palm of one’s hand — students on the autism spectrum are edutaining themselves and learning like never before. As a matter of fact, studies have found that mobile technology not only motivates but allows children with autism to concentrate during learning and demonstrate what they have learned.

The concept of edutainment is not new, as a matter of fact. In the past, we have been edutained by a number of now-famous shows — Schoolhouse Rock, Sesame Street, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and Smart Songs — to teach topics such as math, science, social skills, and history. Board and video games have also been used to teach social skills and academic concepts.

Edu-tainment and apps — how do we employ the powerful principles of edutainment to engage students in academic tasks and improve performance, using apps on mobile devices? Choosing a great edutainment app is more than just picking a math or reading app; here are a few tips on choosing apps that use edutainment to effectively teach important skills such as communication, social behavior, or academics:

Use the apps yourself prior to giving them to your children or students.

Choose apps that can be customized with the child’s information or picture.

Find apps that include reinforcers (verbal or sound).

Emphasize apps that have a point system or levels.

Pick an app that engages as many of the senses possible.

Download apps that use various themes and are not repetitive.

Encourage your child to “help” choose the app.

Technology is increasingly infiltrating the educational system giving students with autism access to tools that stimulate crucial areas of the brain responsible for learning and entertainment. Whether at home or in school, engagement and learning can go hand in hand.

What app should I use? This is a common question form family member(s), teachers and therapists trying to answer the question, “what are the best apps to fit with the individual needs of their child or student?” Unfortunately there is no one answer, every person is an individual with a unique interests and learning style.

There is an overwhelming flood of information, in the media today. Feature matching is an effective tool to assess the usefulness of a particular app based on characteristics of the user. By matching features available in an app with the user, their environment and abilities prior to purchasing that app you maximize the probability of a good fit. This allows you conserve your time and money and increases the effectiveness of your iPad as a learning tool. Download theThe Quick Feature Matching Checklist

As technology continues to progress and morph, so must our ability to gauge the suitability of this technology for our children and students. To this end, the Quick Feature Matching Checklist has been updated to include the features; animation, photo personalization and remote prompting.

By using the newly updated Feature Matching Checklist you can effectually wade through the plethora of choices to find the most suitable app(s) for your child’s needs.

Animations / Actions

Apps that contain animations or incorporate videos are becoming very popular for teaching language concepts, verbs, social skills, tasks, etc. They not only let the student see a model of the activity but are engaging eliciting increased focus and attention. Apps such as InnerVoice AAC, Noodle Words, WordToob, VAST Pre-Speech and First Phrases harness the power of action and go beyond flashcards to teach communication and important life skills.

Photo Personalization

The ability to personalize an app by adding a photo of yourself or your favorite character increases the “fun factor” and buy-in of any educational material. StoryBots, InnerVoice AAC, Toca Boca and others are taking the iPad to a whole new level for learning and communication. Look for photo personalization if you want to tap into the power of edutainment (educate + entertain). Research indicates that when communication is fun, people communicate more.

Remote Prompting

Remote prompting is a new approach to teaching communicative independence, using iDevices (iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch). This technique allows learners to receive a prompt on their iDevice that guides them to the correct response. Using InnerVoice AAC, prompts are sent via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth from the educator’s device to the user’s iPad to ensure the child will perform the correct skill and reduce the probability of errors and frustration. Remote Prompting reduces confusing verbal explanations that interfere with the communicative intent or message.

Data / Tracking

If you are an educator or therapist, then data/tracking student progress is not only important but a huge time saving option. Many educational apps not allow the user to collect and save data for a single or multiple students as well as take notes. Check data tracking features prior to buying to help increase your efficiency. Parents can also monitor progress on goals at home.

Voice Output

The proper fit for voice output can support the acquisition of both language and speech. Research has shown that students on the spectrum prefer synthesized voice output over the human voice. Also, students with auditory processing challenges may respond better to high quality synthesized voices. However, not all students have the same preferences or respond to voice output in the same manner. It is highly desirable feature to have a choice of both synthesized and digitized voice for those apps that have an auditory output component.

Customization

Having the ability to add personalized pictures and content to any app is highly motivating for the student on the spectrum. Having the convenience of customization features within the app can save time and allow the user to create individual lessons/communication boards on the fly.

Adjustable difficulty levels reduces frustration when a task to too challenging and allows a student to move up levels as they master concepts.

Display

Does your student recognize icons or symbols or are real pictures preferred? Some apps give the user a choice of real pictures or choose from a library of icons/symbols.

Sensory

Sounds & visuals can be motivating or distracting to a child trying to complete a task. Having the choice to turn them on/off without leaving the app is a feature that makes using the iPad a seamless educational tool.

Self-Monitoring

Whether you are self-monitoring or being monitored by a parent/educator, having the ability to track progress can facilitate success.

Share / Email

Being able to share student work and accomplishments with others is my favorite feature. Parents may want to share a memory book with family, therapists may want to share student progress with other educators and individuals may want to share thoughts/ideas with friends via social networking.

Motor Skills

Know what fine motor skills an app requires prior to purchase. What are your child’s/student’s motor abilities? Do they have the ability to interact with a particular app, are they working on motor skills within the app or do they enjoy lots of tactile interactions.

Price

The price category is for reference only. Price should not be a feature to consider when determining if an app is a good fit for a child or student.

Educational materials usually have a high cost. The introduction of the iPad and apps has significantly reduced the price of communicating and learning. A pack of flashcards, board game or workbook can cost from $9.99 to $ 89.99. I am happy to pay $0.99 to $49.99 for materials I can use over and over with high motivation, attention and interaction.

Apps make great gifts; they can be fun, convenient engaging and unbreakable. Chosen wisely, they can also offer the added benefit of educating in one form or another, such as, building communication, language, fine motor skills, literacy and general life skills, now you have Edutainment.

Edutainment: any entertainment content that is designed to educate as well as to entertain. Educating our kiddos while they play sounds like win, win. It’s a gift that won’t put a hurting on your wallet either. These wonderful stocking stuffers range from free to $29.00. I’ll cover how to gift an app at the end of the article.

So let’s get to it! Following is a list of some of the best, tried-and-true apps. Recommended by speech pathologists, assistive technology specialists, occupational therapists and most importantly the children themselves; Kids love these apps. Remember, the kiddos should be engaging in that activity by choice.

1. InnerVoice AAC App: Making Communication Fun!

InnerVoice will immerse you into a total communication environment — where you not only hear the desired message, but see it being produced. This award winning, patented, and affordable app takes full advantage of all the iPad has to offer. With 3D animated avatars, pre-programmed vocabularies, TTS, remote prompting and much, much more this affordable app is a must for all those who have communication challenges.

InnerVoice incorporates Edutainment — teaching through a medium that both educates & entertains, surprises & amazes. Priced at a fraction of the cost of typical AAC technology, this app is the perfect gift for any occasion. To learn more visit the InnerVoice website, to buy click on the InnerVoice icon above or the Apple icon below.

2. Toca Doctor: Let your Kids Be a Doctor for a Day

Toca Doctor is a fun and puzzling digital toy for kids. Examine the patients and play puzzles and mini-games that take place in the human body. There are no timers or stress elements so that kids can play in their own time. If they can’t finish any certain game it still continues so that they never get stuck. It always works and it’s always fun!

Help your child identify body parts while giving them the language they need to identify and treat different types of “hurt.” Learning what hurt or ouch means and identifying where the discomfort is may be one of the biggest requests I have from parents. Toca Doctor is a stress free way to introduce the concept of pain, body parts and first aid to children.

Any Toca Boca app is a great gift and will bring many hours of fun, real life concepts and language. To learn more visit Toca Boca. To buy click on the Apple icon or the Toca Boca app icon above.

3. This Next One is a Double-Header!

Two great, Kid approved apps that target the same skill. I have had great success with both in my sessions as well as my colleagues. I couldn’t choose between them, and that’s why you have the double header. Your child will never know they are practicing fine motor & literacy skills.

Touch and Write: Kids Love Learning to Write

To Learn more about the app visit the developers website, FizzBrain. To purchase click on the icon above or the Apple logo below.

Letter School: Makes Handwriting Cool!

An amazing, intuitive game to learn all about letters and numbers: writing, counting, phonics and more. LetterSchool, has received many accolades from just about everyone for being a spectacular app.

In this app there is four games that correspond to each letter and number: INTRO – discover the letter’s shape, name and sound, TAP– learn where to start, change direction and finish by tapping the dots,TRACE– learn the letter trajectory by tracing it, WRITE – test your knowledge by writing from memory

To learn more about LetterSchool visit their website. To Purchase click the icon or follow the App Store link below

Touch and Write & Letter School are sooooo much fun to use that children will use it in their “free” time. Even children who have had challenges with fine motor skills for years are motivated to write with their favorite texture and animations. Each app offers a multitude of choices such as embedded word lists (including sight words), letter styles, custom lists, writing paper and much more parents can direct the play and children never know they are practicing fine motor and literacy skills.

4. My Play Home: A Digital Doll House for the iGeneration

Massively interactive, your kids can explore and use everything in the house. The characters eat, sleep, shower, and brush their teeth and more. Want the room to be darker? Close the drapes! Fancy a change in music? Pop a different CD into the stereo!

Language, concepts, social skills, life skills and much more can be absorbed while your children are amusing themselves with My Play Home. Characters in this app can be changed to fit the imagination of your child.

To find out more about this app visit myplayhomeapp.com To purchase click on the icon or follow the App Store link below

5. The Monster at The End of This Book

The Monster at the End of This Book enhances the classic Sesame Street book with a completely immersive experience that draws children right into the story. Join lovable, furry old Grover as he tries his very hardest to tie down pages and build brick walls— all to keep readers away from the monster at the end of this book. The all-time favorite you loved as a child comes alive for today’s young readers with interactive play, plus touch-point animation.

The Monster at the End of This Book will open-up the world of literacy for your child. Your child will read it again and again. After your child has mastered the iPad app, you can then get the hardcover book. Your child can then transfer their new reading skills to the hardcover and read for themselves. Encouraging a healthy love for books is a priceless gift for any child.

To purchase click on the icon or follow the App Store link below

6. Injini: Child Development Game Suite

Injini’s collection of learning games offers meaningful play to young children, especially toddlers and preschoolers with cognitive, language, and fine motor delays. The games contain an extraordinary wealth of content: 10 feature games with 90 puzzles, over 100 beautiful illustrations, 8 farm-themed mini-games and more. Injini is ideally suited for early intervention – it brings fun to learning and at the same time practices children’s fine motor and language skills, understanding of cause and effect, spatial awareness, memory and visual processing.

giving needs Injini is a superb gift for Christmas, birthday or any occasion. Check out all the apps by Injini for your gift.

7. “The Talkers:” A group of apps that repeat what you say and interact with the user.

This is a group of apps that foster communication by providing a fun motivating environment to practice expressive language skills. Each Character Talker has a unique set of reactions to your gestures and commands. Talking Ginger will help out with those important hygiene routines, Talking Rex and Talking Tom will encourage language concepts such as verbs, cause and effect and comedy.

Let your children express their creativity with Talking Characters. Then make a recording and share with friends, family and social network. These recordings can also serve as messages that allow your child to communicate their thoughts in a fun way.

To purchase click on the respective icon, from left to right: Talking Ginger, Talking Tom, Talking Tom and Ben- The News and Talking Rex.

8. PlaySquare: WordWorld’s Happy Birthday Dog

Touchable Television is a nutritious, active, engaging new media experience that’s a story and a game all in one. Touchable Television allows you to use your finger to draw on the screen and become part of the action. Kids are engaged from start to finish and when kids are engaged, they are learning!

Fabulous animation and loveable characters will keep your child’s attention through engagement best of all they don’t even realize they are learning to read.

To learn more about PLay Square visit them at PLaySquare.tv. To purchase click on the icon or follow the App link below

9. Cake Doodle

Crack the eggs, shake the salt, pour in the liquids, squeeze the lemon, mash the bananas, sift the flour, and toss in the dry ingredients. Blend the batter and bake your cake in our super-fast oven.

Eat the cake yourself when you’re done or save it to your photo album. Surprise your friends with a customized cake e-mailed to them on their special day.

All the Cooking Doodle apps make a great gift for children and teens as they teach important life skills and language concepts that can then be generalized into your home kitchen.

10. First Words Professional

First Words Professional uses the same intuitive interface that is so easy for preschoolers, kindergartners, and kids with special needs to use. They’ll giggle with delight at the beautifully drawn pictures and matching entertaining sounds, all the while learning how letters correspond to sounds and how letters sounds form words.

Believe it or not, kids love this app and adults have the control to adjust levels to match the individual needs of the child. Maybe it’s the clean friendly format or the sound effects and spin-outs that “hook” the children, never-the-less it is an entertaining gift app and great language, literacy booster.

To learn more about this app visit them at learningtouch.com To purchase click on the icon or follow the Apple App link below.

Bonus App First Words has several versions including a Holiday Theme with 40 Christmas words and sounds

These wonderful “Gift” apps were inspired by working and playing with children on the autism spectrum. They have been rigorously tested and used by educators, speech pathologists, assistive technology specialists, occupational therapists and parents. We’ve had significant success helping children meet their developmental milestones and it is our sincerest hope that you will too. Although these great “Gift” apps were compiled while working with children on the spectrum, we have found they work equally well for children with cerebral palsy, Down syndrome and various developmental delays, as well as typically developing preschoolers.

Gifting From an iDevice (iPad, iPhone or iPod touch)

Find an item in the App store or iTunes store that you wish to gift.

Tap the Share icon in the upper right.

Tap the Gift icon from the resulting screen.

Sign in to the iTunes Store with your Apple ID.

Type the email address for the person you wish to send the iTunes Gift.

If you like, add a message.

Pick the day you want to send the gift.

Select a theme for your gift.

Tap Buy, and then tap “Buy to confirm.”

Gifting from a Mac or Pc

Sign in to the iTunes Store with your Apple ID.

Find an item in the App Store or iTunes Store that you want to gift.

Click the arrow to the right of the price and select Gift This.

Type the email address for the person you want to send the iTunes Gift.

Engaging, fun, Effective Communication at a fraction of The Price

Introductory Price $9.99Click Image to Buy

iTherapy and MotionPortrait, Inc. are proud to give you InnerVoice, setting a new standard for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) apps with never-before-seen features such as animated self-avatars and remote prompting.

InnerVoice will immerse you into a total communication environment — where you not only hear the desired message, but see it being produced. This award winning, patented, and affordable app takes full advantage of all the iPad has to offer.

As therapists working daily with students on the autism spectrum we saw a tremendous need for an affordable communication solution. We decided to make InnerVoice accessible to all individuals with special needs, by offering InnerVoice at a very affordable price of $19.99. Our goal is to give all families the opportunity take advantage of the powerful new features offered by this incredible app, InnerVoice.

Establishing a New Set of Standards For AAC Apps

Animated Avatars

Video Self-Modeling (VSM) uses positive self-imagery of an individual performing a task, such as communicating, encouraging the individual to imitate the behavior. VSM is a highly effective approach for children who are visual learners and have challenges focusing on live models. The idea is that the individual sees him/herself communicating successfully and can then imitate that behavior.

InnerVoice takes full advantage of VSM by animating the user’s image to successfully communicate a message thus providing powerful visual prompts with the added benefit of a more personal mode of expression.

These 3D animated avatars not only engage users and communication partners of all ages but also improve speech comprehension by displaying synchronized mouth movements. By animating self-portraits, users can see themselves produce target behaviors and in doing so learn how to communicate.

Remote Prompting

InnerVoice features remote-prompting, a patent-pending feature that allows a new approach to teaching communicative independence, using mobile devices. This technique allows learners to receive a prompt on their iPad that guides them to the correct response.

With InnerVoice, prompts are sent via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth from the educator’s device to the user’s iPad, without saying a word, to ensure the child will perform the correct skill and reduce the probability of errors and frustration. Most importantly, remote prompting reduces confusing verbal explanations and auditory overload that interfere with learning communication-related concepts.

Edutainment–Education meets Entertainment For a Positive Outcome

Users can animate most images and make them speak: what they say is only limited by their imagination. This entertainment factor enables users to practice new skills through play — heightening engagement and interest in learning.

InnerVoice was collaboratively developed by iTherapy, LLC and MotionPortrait, Inc. — two companies committed to making communication an enriching, fascinating, and entertaining experience. iTherapy is a speech pathologist-owned and -operated company, which designs multisensory learning and communication tools for special needs populations. MotionPortrait, Inc. is an entertainment solution company that evokes surprise and impression through creative technological innovations. MotionPortrait’s technology automatically creates a 3D face model from a single digital photograph.

Features Include

2 embedded vocabularies that are research based and incredibly easy to use, lets you get started immediately.

Core Vocabulary is essential to spontaneous communication. According to research, Core Vocabulary comprises approximately 85% of conversational speech.

Basic Vocabulary, which includes core and extended vocabulary words.

Color-coded organization – the buttons are organized to provide simple access for users.

Genuine Text-to-Speech children’s voices from Acapela Group to give a voice to those with challenges such as autism, cerebral palsy, stroke, downs syndrome, etc.

Record feature lets you record your message or sound effects in any style or language.

Build your own vocabulary to meet your specific requirement.

Customize buttons and folders with written words to support literacy as Dr. Temple Grandin describes in her Teaching Tips for Children And Adults With Autism, “so that the child can hear the word and view the picture and printed word simultaneously.”

Enhance buttons and folders with pictures using the built in camera, camera roll or standard emoji keyboard.

Lois Jean Brady and Matthew Guggemos are practicing speech-language pathologists in the San Francisco Bay Area. Matthew was the recipient of the 2013 Mensa Education & Research Foundation Award for his patent on technology including the features of InnerVoice. Lois is an award winning author and producer of the public broadcast show Autism TodayTV. Read more about Lois and Matthew at Innervoice

Twilio and Autism Speaks Host Hackathon

From right to left: John Fairchild, Gary Bryan, Lois Brady, Doug Goldie 1st place with VIP (Virtual Interactive Practice)

This past weekend was a blast. Coming together with a room of programmers, designers, developers and supporters for a 24hr marathon of brain storming, code crunching and demoing is an experience to remember.

This was my second Hackathon and like the first, I saw many great minds developing apps to support individuals on the autism spectrum. Read more about it at Autism Speaks and Cnet

AT&T Mobile App Hackathon – Autism Speaks (San Francisco)

Through the years I have implemented more and more technology into my therapy sessions, not as a solution, but as a bridge to reach set goals. To many students, this technology has been a conduit to varying degrees of independence.

I have used hundreds of apps some good and some good in theory only. Many of the latter ones are evidence based and use core principles of education, but lack one very important thing. The ability to engage the student, without the student’s interest anyone or anything, no matter how good, will be hard pressed to make any type of measurable progress.

I use many apps depending on the goals we’re working towards, social skills, communication skills etc. When you consistently work with apps you start to notice their strengths and their deficits. I find myself saying, “if only this app would take data, if only this app would give feedback, if only I could import images directly from Google and so on. I have compiled a list of “if only” The idea of the list is to one day use it to build an app that will have as many of the “if only” items on the list incorporated thus maximizing it’s potential to make a difference for the autism community.

When I found out that Autism Speaks was partnering with AT&T to sponsor an app hackathon in my backyard, San Francisco. I thought, what a great place to meet software engineers, designers and overall techies that get together to do some social good. A perfect opportunity to see one of the many apps I have in mind become reality.

With that in mind, I eagerly registered and confirmed two attendees, my husband and myself. Although my husband was unaware at this point that he was going, I was sure he would agree, this endeavor was well worth the effort. I failed to tell him, it was six to midnight the first day and ten in the morning to potentially midnight the next day. He didn’t ask, however.

We arrived at the Hattery and took a seat. It was a rather casual scene; plenty of food and energy drinks were served. It started promptly at 7, mind you, it was supposed to start at 6; it was only later that I found out, we were supposed to be mingling between 6-7, rookie mistakes.

Alex Donn from the AT&T Developer Program gave us the details of the event. Everyone present walked to the front and introduced themselves and said whether they were programmers, designers, marketing gurus, idea people (me) and so on.
Now it was time to make connections and build a team.

The “making Friends” Team

The first person we met was Gabriel Adauto, an iOS developer from “Motion Math”, wow; we were off to a great start. I pitched my app idea, and he was on board. Next, time to look for a designer. We pitched our idea to Rachel Blue; she was on board as well. As I was detailing the app idea to Rachel, a guy off to the left, Lance Vikaros, a game designer, listened in; he was interested and wanted to contribute. With that our team was formed, so we thought. A young man, full of energy, approached the group and inquired about the project. Come to find out, Jay Zalowitz was the last member of our team.

This being my first hackathon I was unsure of what t expect next. A seasoned team member explained the sequence of events; I was told that the hardest part was killing babies. What! Killing babies! We’ll come back to this term.

Yes, it’s a flow chart

The team gathered around a white board and created the flow of the app. Scenes, scripts and features were discussed. Due to the time constraints, some of my important app features had to be dropped. It was painfully hard to accept the fact; I had to choose which ones were dropped knowing that all were equally important. Hence the term “killing babies.”

It was approaching midnight so we agreed to continue work from home and communicate using Google+ Hangout. With work delegated, each team member got busy. For someone who can’t stay up past 10pm I was doing pretty good considering the clock was telling me it was half past two in the morning.

The next morning we all convened at the Hattery at 10am. Everyone was nose deep into their computers only coming up briefly for a bite to eat or ask for files they needed from other team members. I was busy working on the presentation due a 6pm. The app slowly came together. By 6pm the finishing touches were being implemented.

At six in evening, it was time to present. A total of twenty-seven teams were presenting their work. The apps presented that night were nothing short of amazing. Amazing because to produce an app from scratch to a presentable piece in one day is an incredible amount of work. All those energy drinks make sense now.

Our app “MakingAFriend” was a winner. We made the app’s code available as open source so that anyone could use or improve on it, our way of giving back to the community and doing our part in doing social good.

This past weekend I met an amazing group of people doing great things for a great cause, I am happy that I got the opportunity to be part of it. I look forward to doing it again.

Here are the app details:

Name of the app: MakingAFriend
Device intended for: iPad

Description:

Making Friend will give individuals the practice and confidence needed to meet new people and build relationships. Through “game-like” activity individuals can practice interpreting facial expression, body language, personal hygiene, self-regulation and social pragmatic skills of initiating and maintaining appropriate conversations. Earn confidence points while making new friends.

Designed to meet the needs of everyone with three levels of play and multiple language choices.

Some studies suggests that physical activity may help with students’ cognitive control and ability to pay attention which can lead to better school grades. That sounds like a no brainer.

Many of us think that exercise is something we do in the gym, tread mill, weight lifting and so on, however; to a kid, exercise means playing games like tag, green light red light and generally just being active. Many get exercise at school during gym period, recess or even riding their bikes.

To our kiddos on the spectrum, exercise may not come as easy for reasons like, socialization challenges, coordination challenges. While it may take extra effort to get a child with autism to be physically active, the benefits are well worth the effort.

In addition to the aforementioned, physical activity plays an important part in fitness strength and flexibility, it decreases anxiety, depression, tension, fatigue and anger, and protects against disease and injury while promoting creativity, cognition, attention and communication.

The key is to make fitness a fun experience.

In this episode, we go to Sonoma State in California to explore two programs that are designed for students with special needs. It gives them the opportunity to participate in physical education while building social skills.